MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ENGLAND

Another engaging thematic ramble from the author of How to Prepare for Your High School Reunion (1988), Ivy Days (1984), and Blooming (1981). Toth made her first trip to England in 1960. Armed with street map and umbrella, the college senior attended classes, mastered the London Underground, and nearly overdosed on theater before hitchhiking through the countryside with a friend. Here, her gently shaded reminiscences of this and subsequent trips have the simple declarative style and self-revealing moments of her other books and especially fit her subject. From Pixey Green to Hickley Broad, Sheepy Magna to Great Wapses, Toth focuses on the singular features and quirky details that not only make each visit supremely satisfying but also keep her returning for more. She shares the excitement of a badger-sighting arranged by a protective country- house host; a search for the smallest church in England (she and husband James prefer unspoiled, out-of-the-way places); a morning at local sheepdog trials; rhapsodies on clotted cream and English breakfasts; and, in recent years, the start of a collection of walking sticks for the footpaths that provide her most exhilarating excursions. Thirty years and many trips later, Toth still seeks England as a refuge despite the inevitably troubling signs of the times, and her idiosyncratic observations are a cheery contrast to more traditional tour books (or what she calls ``bleak chic''). Anglophiles will cherish this kindred spirit like a delicately flowered teacup, and will envy her unique finds.